A Periplus of the Persian Gulf

Author(s): Arnold Wilson

Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Mar., 1927), pp. 235-255
Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
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A PERIPLUS

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235

Mr. Laird Clowes for that?and that Fra Mauro's accurate delineation of the
east coast of Africa and the map including the island of Madagascar, of which
Vasco da Gama was ignorant, and which he missed when he went up the coast
and struck across to India, is due to communications between the Venetians
and the Arabs, if not the Chinese. Certainly those illustrations which Mr.
Laird Clowes put upon the screen seem to show that there were both Arab
ships of the Mediterranean type, at any rate the Red Sea type, down in those
southern waters and also ships of much heavier type differently rigged and with
fore-and-aft castles, which may or may not have been China-built. However,
I must not attempt to give a second lecture on a subject, however interesting,
which was treated so admirably by Mr. Laird Clowes. I must ask you to
express your gratitude for what has been a most careful and interesting paper,
very much enhanced by the beautiful models Mr. Laird Clowes has been
allowed through his official position to bring here, and for a near sight of which,
not through the glass of a show-case, I am sure we are all exceedingly grateful.
I beg to offer him your thanks.

PERIPLUS

Lieut.-Col.

Sir

OF
Arnold

Read at the Meeting

THE

PERSIAN

Wilson,

of the Society,

K.C.I.E.,

GULF
D.S.O.

io January

new

1927.

I have
to say regarding the Persian Gulf:
nothing
1HAVE
not broken fresh ground, nor explored untrodden wastes, nor can
I add anything
to the world's stock of knowledge.
To reshuffle
is
to
increase
I
and
should
have
been
it,
knowledge
rarely
glad to use
" It
own
observations
and
more
that
of
others
less.
is, however,
my
not necessary "?to quote Doctor Johnson?"
that a man should forbear
to write till he has discovered some truth unknown before;
he may
be sufficiently useful, by only diversifying
the surface of knowledge,
and luring the mind by a new appearance to a second view of those
beauties which it had passed over inattentively before."
In that spirit I address you, and in that spirit I ask you to follow
me in the wake of Sindbad the Sailor, whose narratives,written
in the
ninth century, are part of the stock-in-trade
of every well-conducted
For there are beauties in " the Gulf," as I shall call it here?
nursery.
not
after,
only of scenery but of animal life also, by sea and by land;
nor are the people on its shores unworthy of admiration.
Above all,
its history is of absorbing interest to us. There is not an island, not a
port, not a tract of water in the Gulf that does not recall some gallant
or tragic incident in British annals.
On Qishm Island, for example,
lies William Baffin, discoverer of Baffin's Bay ; at Hormuz and Bandar
Abbas, Basidu and Bushire, and in a multitude of smaller ports on both
of twenty generations
of seamen and
sides, lie buried representatives
soldiers, British and Indian, and the bones of merchants not a few.
I need not, therefore, offer any apology if I seem to refer at times less to
the geography than to the history of a region in which I have spent some

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236

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fifteen years, and which has exercised over me a fascination which only
those can understand who have lived for many years in primitive lands
among ancient peoples.
The geological
history of the Gulf may be said to begin in late
when
the Zagros range on one side and on the other
Secondary times,
But Oman
the great plateau of Arabia rose out of the Cretaceous Sea.
is really far older than this, for in those far-off timeless days the southern
part of Arabia had already emerged from the waters that covered the
face of the Earth : those blackened windswept countries have been land
since land began.
They are older than anything in Eastern seas, except
the high places of Dravidia ; no water has ever covered them ; the sun
At first the
has held and still holds unchallenged
dominion over them.
"
Musandam massif separated the Gulf of Oman and " the Indian Ocean
" the Mediter?
from the Persian Gulf proper, which was connected with
In Miocene times the plateau of Arabia was elevated, and the
ranean."
Persian Gulf became an inland lake.
After untold ages, still in the
Miocene period, further violent movements took place ; the Musandam
promonitory sank, and admitted to the Gulf the waters of the Eastern
Hamitic peoples
ocean.
Ages passed, and man began to appear?the
entered from Africa, the Dravidians, perhaps, pushed along the Balu?
chistan coast; from the north, at a much later date, came Aryan races,
But they
whilst Semitic tribes occupied the western and northern shores.
were colonists rather than conquerors.
The very earliest records we possess of human activities in this region
relate to commerce.
The British Museum has a tablet from Ur of the
the
near
Chaldees,
present Basra, dated about 2000 B.C., which records
the arrival by sea at Ur from Dilmun?which
may or may not be Bahrain
?of copper, wood of various kinds, diorite, and pearls.
Dhufar, an out?
most
the
was
and
of
the
oldest
productive
Oman,
perhaps
province
lying
of the frankincense districts of Arabia, to which Milton refers when he
writes :

" Off at sea north-east winds blow

Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest." *

It was the Mount Sephar of Genesis, the Cana of the Periplus of the
" to which all the frankincense
produced in the country
Erythraean Sea,
is brought by camels, on rafts, and in boats."
sons of Joktan
The people of Dhufar are of the Qahtan tribe?the
mentioned in Genesis : they are of Hamitic or African rather than
"
Arab types ; and their country, though it borders on the
Empty
Quarter," must get its fair share of monsoon rains.
One hundred miles farther along the coast lies Masira Island, the
Sarapis of the unknown author of the Periplus, famous even in those
" settlements of
days for its tortoises, and inhabited, then as now, by
* Paradise Lost, IV. 62-64.

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iS
^

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There

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A PERIPLUS

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Eaters, a villainous lot, who use the Arabian language and wear
* Two thousand or more
years have passed,
girdles of palm leaves."
but economic conditions have not changed, and are not likely to change,
so it need not surprise you to know that when, in 1904, the British steamer
Inverdale, of 2000 tons, with thirty souls aboard, was wrecked on the
Kuria Muria Islands, the survivors landed at Masira and were massacred
But let us not judge these people too hastily, for when some
every one.
vessels of the Spanish Armada were wrecked on the Irish coast only
the crews were
three hundred or so years ago (say ten generations)
treated in the same way, and those that were not killed on landing,
including some young boys, were collected later by Government officials

Fish

and publicly hanged.*)*

we turn north?
A day's steaming
brings us to Ras al Hadd:
and enter the Gulf of Oman.
westward
Some 5 million tons of
this cape every year, but it has
shipping?95
per cent. British?make
no lighthouse, though every master of a ship would like to see one there,
But the local
provided it be a powerful one and absolutely reliable.
tribes owe doubtful allegiance to the Sultan of Muscat, and a lighthouse
would be a tempting opportunity for blackmail or worse.
Just round the corner, tucked
away in a convenient
bay, lies
of
of
the
dominions
the port of Sur, nominally
the
Sultan
part
under its own chiefs.
of Muscat, but in reality almost independent
The physical features of the port closely resemble those of the town
of the same name on the Syrian coast, and it may well be that the
latter was so named by Phoenician
traders, who, says Herodotus,
to their own account of
"came
to the Mediterranean,
according
The position of Sur, the first
from the Persian Gulf."
themselves,
sheltered port on the Oman coast touched by dhows from India or
Africa, has invested it throughout the ages with peculiar importance.
bums and balils manned
Until the advent of steam, the high-pooped
and owned by Suris were to be seen in due season in every port on the
Nowhere were better or faster ships built than on the
Indian Ocean.
Oman and Arab coast of the Gulf, no nation had more skilful sailors
But steam ruined the industry, and
or more enterprising merchants.
dealt a blow at the maritime Arabs from which they have never recovered,
for they have neither the capital, the knowledge, nor the resources to stand
Sur was long the centre of the slave
up against European steam vessels.
trade from Africa, and the suppression of the traffic proved even more
difficult here than at Muscat, despite the vigilance of patrolling cruisers,
and the dhows plied a remunerative trade, as often as not under cover
Retribution overtook the Suri slavers on the dis?
of the French flag.
of the traffic in Samuco Bay on the East
covery of the headquarters
naval expedition broke up the
African Coast, in 1902 : a Portuguese
* Schoff, ' Periplus of the Erythraean Sea/
p. 35.
'
t Lord Ernest Hamilton, Forty Years on/ p. 220.

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238

A. PERIPLUS

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^
3
fc
.Q

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A PERIPLUS

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camp and captured the principal delinquents,

and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

239

who were brought to trial

Sur has languished ever
since, but is still a centre of some importance and, by virtue of its geo?
graphical situation, is a serious rival to Muscat and Matra.
Another 100 miles up the coast lies Muscat, one of the most picturesque
harbours in the world.
The town lies crammed into a narrow recess
at the foot of the hog's-back range of Jabal Akhdhar, or the " Green
Mountain " of Oman.
The harbour is a lake of deep blue, where shoals
of fish disport themselves in the clear water;
the houses stand at the
of Jalali and Mirani,
of
the
and
ruined
fortresses
the
very edge
surf,
of
the
the
reminders
of
grim
great days
Portuguese Empire in the East,
crown the promontories that command the harbour on either side.
A
in
the
in
a
side
comes
from
the
where
breeze
renders
rocks,
ocean,
gap
life less insupportable during the appalling heat of the summer months.
An Arab writer (Abdur Razzak) has left on record the following
" The
rhetorical description of his own feelings of the climate here.
"
heat of the sun," he says,
was so intense that it burned the ruby in the
mine and the marrow in the bones : the sword in its scabbard melted
like wax. ...
In the plains the chase became a matter of perfect ease,
for the desert was filled with roasted gazelles."
Lord Curzon, in more
matter-of-fact
vein, states that a sun temperature of 1890 F. has been
" The rainfall is
recorded.
only 3J inches in the year, and the whole
of this falls within a period of two or three weeks."
In such conditions,
it is not surprising that the genuine Arab has been swamped here in
the African type.*
in 1506, on his way to conquer Hormuz?which
he
Albuquerque,
of
as
one
the two key positions of empire in the Indian Ocean?
regarded
after fruitless negotiations
with the rulers of Muscat as to the amount
of tribute to be paid, sacked and burned it, down to the very mosque
and shipping in the harbour.
Then commenced
the strangle-hold
of
the Portuguese/which
did
until
not
1650.
they
relinquish
Since then Muscat, with its sister port of Matra, the heart of the
sultanate of the same name, has seen rulers of much ability, and has in
It has figured largely in the
consequence maintained its independence.
efforts this country has made in the suppression of the slave trade and of
the arms traffic.
There is a British Admiralty coaling station at Muscat,
about to be replaced by an oil-fuel station ; let us hope that the
Admiralty
will take very special care to ensure that no oil is suffered to leak
from the tank or barges, or be spilt when ships are refuelling, for
it would need but little oil on the shores of the bay to make life in?
tolerable, and fishing impossible, and the people at Muscat live mainly
on fish.
It was of the people of Muscat that a boatswain of the Royal
Navy
the instructions
of the Admiralty to make, when
following
visiting
* * Persia and the Persian
Question/

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240

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strange places, a report of the manners and customs of the inhabitants,

" As to
manners they have none ; and their
penned the famous saying,
*
customs are very beastly."
In fairness to the place, however, it must
be admitted that such a description of the people of Muscat is untrue
and was probably never otherwise than libellous, and Sir J. Malcolm is
careful to record that his informant
described
the author as "a
blunt fellow of a master, an excellent seaman, but who troubles him?
self very little with matters on shore," and admitted that he only made
the entry in despair, having evaded the order to do so as long as he
could.
in view of the palmShaping our course almost north-westward,
belted Batina plain, we reach at last the rocky extremity of the Akhdhar
The rocks of Oman are Archaean, the very foundations of the
range.
ever so slowly, as the shelf
world; yet even Oman is changing?rising
or ledge around Muscat harbour and elsewhere shows.
But time was
we now
when the hills were sinking
at
which
and,
Musandam,
and
their
have
been
off
stand
cut
knee-deep in the
outposts
approach,
Some of these sentinel islands, almost overwhelmed
invading waters.
the
still
sea,
by
keep watch, and tear the vitals of ships which venture
Two such rocks there are here/like
over them.
Scylla and Charybdis,
between which lies a deep channel and a tempting short cut into the
but through the gap runs so fierce a current that not even a
Gulf;
steamer can breast it without risk of destruction against these terrible
all masters are warned against attempting
it, but some must
crags;
" some
TheVenot (1603) records how
needs, now and then, try their luck.
English one day, being half drunk and having a good Wind, would
needs in a frolick sail through that Channel, but so soon as they were
the Wind failed them, and they were in great danger of splitting
the Rock; however they preserved themselves with Fenders and
but not without a great deal of trouble, and were sufficiently
if it had blown hartl, they must in?
before they got out again:
fallibly have been split."
Standing athwart the Strait of Hormuz, these two rocky islets are
known to the Arabs as Salamah wa banat-ha (the Pilot's daughters),
but to us by a name given them by British tars two hundred years ago?
"
The Quoins, an old English word for
wedge," which they strongly
words.
On the smaller
from
similar
Latin
and
Greek
derived
resemble,
of the two stands a lighthouse, the first met with on our way excepting
Built and, until
minor shore lights at Muscat, Jask, and Charbar.
Indian
and
British
of
the
the
at
Governments,
charge
joint
recently, kept
it is, except for the small lighthouse at Muscat and shore lights at Jask
and Charbar, the first public indication of our marine interests in these
got in,
against
Poles,
scared

waters and
thereon.

of our

acceptance

of certain

responsibilities

*
Malcolm, Sketches of Persia' (1861), p. 9.

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consequent

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241

To the south lies the unscalable headland of Musandam, the Mons

asabo of Ptolemy, and the "headland
projecting far out into the sea,
about a day's sail distant," probably descried first by European eye
when Alexander's
admiral, Nearchus, in 325 B.C., reached the Strait
"
from the mouth of the Indus.
Those who understood the situation
"
of the Country," writes Arrian,
affirmed that this Promontory belong'd
to Arabia, and was call'd Maceta, and that Cinnamon, and other fragrant
The same promontory
Spices were convey'd thence to the Assyrians."
was the Maka of Eratosthenes.
According to Juba, navigation in this
" on account
locality was regarded as impracticable on the Arabian side
of the rocks."
When Onesicritus, the pilot of Nearchus, viewed this
promontory, so alluring did it appear that he gave orders that the
fleet should steer directly thither, until he was seasonably
reminded
" that he
must have a shallow Memory, if he did not
by Nearchus
remember
for what Purpose
the Fleet was ordered to pass those
seas." *
The

shores of the Musandam

are inhabited
promontory
by the
a
Shihuh,
very curious and primitive race, who speak a dialect unin?
telligible to Arabs, and on whom we may, I hope, expect fresh light
before long.
Within Musandam, piercing its very heart, are the wondrous
fiords of Elphinstone and Malcolm Inlets, probably the hottest places on
Earth.
On an island in this hell of rock and sea was once established a
submarine cable station?but
not for long, for neither the British nor
Indian staff could endure the climate and the total lack of all amenities.
Two members of the staff having succumbed in as many years, and the
protests of the survivors being disregarded
by Government, they are
believed to have set fire to the station, as a result of which a new arrange?
ment was made, involving relay stations at Jask and Hanjam.
There
were times not long ago when most British Consuls and Political Agents
in the Gulf wished that their predecessors had taken equally heroic
measures, for almost everywhere in the Gulf they were very badly housed,
and provided with none of those amenities, such as ice, electric light, and
fans, which do so much to render life in hot countries agreeable, though
not of necessity more healthy.
"
famous in nothing except her
Jask, in olden days, says Herbert,
into
the
Gulf
of
is
of importance as the point of
now
Persia,"
prospect
of
the
land
ocean
cable
and
the
line from India.
Here the
junction
traders of the East India Company landed their first cargo of goods in
Persia and started that commercial intercourse with the country, which
was later on to have such far-reaching consequences.
Caesar tells us in
his Commentaries,
that " the merchants " gave him the information that
led to the invasion of Britain.
The East India Company harboured no
such design, and our early conflicts in the Persian Gulf were not with
the inhabitants, but with the rival European powers, seeking a monopoly
'
Rooke, Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition,' p. 265 f.
R

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242
of trade there.

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At Jask was killed, in a sea-fight with the Portuguese,

whose epitaph Herbert writes as follows :

worthy Englishman,

" Here lies buried one

Captaine Shilling
unfortunately slaine by the insulting
but that his bones want
Portugall:
sence and expression, they would tell
you the earth is not worthy his receptable, and that the people are blockish,
rude, treacherous, and indomitable."
From Jask the land telegraph lines run along the Makran coast to
con?
To maintain them, as has been done by the I.E.T.D.
Karachi.
tinuously for nearly sixty years, along this torrid shore inhabited by
was to cut
tribesmen whose sole means of showing their independence
It has not been done without loss of life, but
the wire, is no small feat.
the record of this section of the Telegraph Department is, on the whole,
A cable runs eastwards as far as Charbar and
creditable to both sides.
westwards to Hanjam, where it is relayed, and connected by another
At Hanjam is a wireless
short length of cable with Bandar Abbas.
station, enabling ships to announce the probable date and hour of their
arrival at any port in the Persian Gulf except those on the Trucial Coast.
To the north of the Quoins lies Larak, and still further north Hormuz.
The stretch of water here is the key of the Gulf, and Malcolm Inlet is
the pocket in which we may keep the key, for in that majestic solitude
of torrid mountains and deep water the whole British Fleet could ride
Hormuz, once an emporium com?
safely at anchor, should need arise.
almost uninhabited.
Barren it
is
now
modern
to
Bombay,
parable
" the island has no fresh
save
what
for
have
must
water,
been,
always
the fruitfull Cloudes weepe over her, in sorrow of her desolation, late
so populous," says Thomas Herbert, who was there not long after the
were ejected by a joint force of Persians and English in
Portuguese
The sole commerce of
1622, in the days of Shah Abbas the Great.
Hormuz to-day is in red oxide for export and rock salt for local use,
Hormuz was already
but it has been the scene of great adventures.
important as an emporium (as witness Friar Odoric, 1330) before it was
in 1515, after more than one effort, by the great
finally conquered,
who recognized in it one of the key positions necessary
Albuquerque,
On the
of a Portuguese
for the establishment
Empire in the East.
was
soon
famous
the
once
the
of
stripped of
city
Portuguese,
expulsion
and the small island
all that was of value and left to a natural decay;
whose wealth and luxury were once proverbial, which is said to have
boasted a population of 40,000 souls, is now a barren rock inhabited by
some 200 sturdy families of fishermen, living in huts under the shadow
It is vain to speculate on what might have
of the old Portuguese fort.
been the course of events in the Gulf had the English not joined forces

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A PERIPLUS

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243

with the Persians against the Portuguese ; it is sufficient to recognise

that much was at stake on the day on which that decision was made.
On the destruction
of Hormuz,
Shah Abbas formed magnificent
for
a
on
the
mainland, to bear his name : Bandar
plans
great seaport
Abbas rose from the ashes of Hormuz, and to the newly founded port
was transferred the trade of the dead city.
The climate of the town
has an evil reputation:
the learned Doctor Fryer mentions that the
British sailors of the East India Company " stigmatized this Place for
its Excessive Heat, with this sarcastical Saying, That there was but an
Inch-Deal
betwixt Gomberoon and Hell" ; * but, to quote Lovat
" it has its
and when its sleepless nights are
Fraser,
compensations,
in the
forgotten, the vision of Hormuz across the water, incarnadined
sunset and glowing like a jewel, lingers in the memory." f
Bandar Abbas for over two centuries maintained its supremacy as
a commercial port, thanks to good land communications
with the capital
at Isfahan, and to its anchorage, which was convenient and good for the
But to-day ships must anchor a mile or two from
ships of those days.
and
there
is
no
shelter from most winds;
whilst the Bushireland,
Shiraz route, which is more or less passable for wheels, has tended to
divert traffic, with the result that trade in Bandar Abbas has not increased
as at some other ports.
A few miles east of Bandar Abbas lie the rich gardens and date groves
of Minab, which first gladdened the eye of a European in 325 B.C., when
Nearchus put into the creek on his voyage up the Gulf and learnt the
" Here
whereabouts
of Alexander's
army.
they arriv'd," says Arrian,
" at a town called
at the Mouth of the River Anamis, in a
Harmozia,
Country pleasant and agreeable, and abounding in every thing, except
Olives.
Here, going on Shore, they gladly refresh'd themselves, after
so many, and hard Labours, and joyfully reflected on the various Accidents
they had encounter?d, during the whole Voyage." $ At Minab died,
two thousand years later, Maani, the Syrian wife of the traveller Pietro
della Valle.
She does not lie buried here, however, for he caused her
to
be
embalmed
and carried it about with him for four years until,
body
on his return to Rome, he had the mournful satisfaction of giving her
honourable interment in the cemetery of her ancestors.
He himself
died in 1652.
Leaving Bandar Abbas and taking at first a south-westerly
course,
we soon have Qishm island to starboard, and separated from the main?
land by Clarence Strait.
We are now well within the Gulf itself.
The
first notice of the island seems again to be that of Arrian, who
says:
" And
setting sail (from Harmozia), in a run of 300 stadia they passed
a desert and bushy island, and moored beside another island which, was
* '
East India and Persia/ Hakl. Soc, 2, 165.
* Fryer's
t India Under Lord Curzon and After,' 1911.
'
t Rooke, Arrian's History of Alexander's Expedition,' chap, xxxiii.

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small desert island was called Organa (Jerun,

large and inhabited?the
Hormuz) ; and the one at which they anchored Oarakta, planted with
vines and date palms, and with plenty of corn." * The Portuguese had
a strong fort on the side of Qishm opposite to Hormuz, constructed to
guard the water and other supplies upon which Hormuz depended for
its very existence.
It was at the storming of this fort by a combined
English and Persian force that the discoverer of Baffin's Bay met his
"
( His
death.
Master
Purchas, in
Pilgrimes,'
quaintly tells us that
Baffin went on shoare with his Geometricall Instruments, for the taking
the height and distance of the Castle wall, for the better leavelling of
his Peece to make his shot; but as he was about the same, he received
a small shot from the Castle into his belly, wherewith he gave three
He was buried on the island.
leapes, by report, and died immediately."
"
it
known
to British sailors, is on
as
was
or
Bassadore,"
Basidu,
of
the north-western
Qishm, exposed to. all the winds that
extremity
It was ceded to the British Crown in 1817, having been selected,
blow.
after the suppression of piracy on the Arabian coast, as a base for the
squadron responsible for keeping order in the Gulf and protecting trade.
The vision of a convenient headquarters for naval activities soon vanished,
however, for the summer, with its intense heat, proved detrimental to
the health of the occupants, and the station was abandoned in 1823.
Only a native agent was left there to guard the stores that had been
accumulated ; but the British flag still flies there on occasions.
About 25 miles due south of Qishm lie the Great and Little Tanb
" The Tombs."
On the larger of
islands, known to our forefathers as
the two is a fine lighthouse of the same power as that on the smaller
A barren island this, standing stark out of the water, inhabited-**1
Quoin.
except for a few months when cattle belonging to the Shaikh of Sharja,
to whom the island belongs, are brought from the Arabian side to graze?
swallows,
only by snakes, seafowl and, in spring, by the ubiquitous
which build their nests every year in the quarters of the lighthouse crew,
well knowing that from Ireland to Cape Comorin no man will molest
them, be he Persian, Arab, Turk, Indian, or European, for their presence
The
This belief is of great antiquity.f
brings good luck to the house.
and
on
here
Indians
from
the
district,
Ratnagiri
crew,
mostly
lighthouse
the Little Quoin rock, must surely find time lie heavy on their hands,
for the lighthouse tender visits them only once every few months, bringing
Yet there is no lack of competition for
food, water, and a relief crew.
the duty!
Close by the Tanb islands, in 1800, the East India Company's cruiser
Com?
Sylph, a schooner of 18 tons, was attacked by Jawasmi pirates.
manders of British vessels in those days received from the Bombay
Government peremptory orders, any infringement of which would involve
'
McCrindle, Arrian's Account of the Voyage* of Nearchus/ 1879.
*
t See Sophocles, Elect./ V., 149; also Sale, The Koran/ p. 499.

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is

is
$
?3

H!;?

MrMk-

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There

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A PERIPLUS

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dismissal, on no account to fire on Arab craft until they first opened fire.
These orders placed a small cruiser absolutely at their mercy, for the
Jawasmi cared not to engage in a gunnery duel with British seamen;
their tactics consisted in running alongside an enemy and throwing
on to the deck of the vessel some hundreds of men armed to the teeth,
thus bearing down all resistance.
The dhows in this case quickly ran alongside, with their overhanging
in an instant the decks of the Sylph were swarming with
prows;
desperadoes who, with the name of the Prophet on their lips and a thirst
for Christian blood in their hearts, commenced a wholesale massacre,
and in a few minutes almost the entire crew had perished, fighting
The arrival of a large sister ship prevented the Jawasmi
desperately.
from killing the rest and sinking the ship.
This and similar outrages
at length opened the eyes of the Government of Bombay and Court of
Directors to the absurdity of the instructions enjoined upon naval officers.
The public voice called for the punishment of the piratical horde, but it
was not until the blood-red Jawasmi flag was seen even on the coasts of
India that the authorities completely awoke to a sense of shame*
The home of the Jawasmi was that stretch of low shore running souths
west of Ras Musandam and due south of the Tanb islands;
here lie
sweltering beaches and yellow sands, a desolate windswept shore, and a
tangle of narrow creeks and shallow lagoons,
only partially explored
even in this day, but then hardly known at all. Navigation is difficult
even for native craft, and such a locality was well calculated to afford
protection to the pirates and to render their suppression exceedingly
difficult.
The Jawasmi headquarters was the town of Ras al Khaima,
formerly known as Julfa, on a sandy spit enclosing a deep narrow bay
protected by a bar. Other Jawasmi resorts were Sharja and Abu Dhabi.
Thence, inspired largely by Wahabi tenets, they made their sallies, at
first confining their activities to native craft, but, as time went on and
A
they waxed in strength, fearing not to attack even British vessels.
naval and military expedition despatched in 1809 from Bombay to Ras
al Khaima, with the object of destroying the power of the Jawasmi,
succeeded only in keeping them quiescent for a time, and it was not
until 1819 that conclusive action was taken.
A powerful armament
proceeded again to Ras al Khaima and, after a stiff resistance and a
siege of six days, the town was captured, the Jawasmi boats burnt, and
the forts razed to the ground.
followed for a treaty of
Negotiations
" Pirate
peace, which was concluded in 1820, and the
Coast " became the
"
Trucial Oman."
That treaty has never been broken; and, with one
or two exceptions, the present chiefs of the Trucial Coast are the direct
descendants
of those who signed that treaty, and they enjoy a not less
than their fathers enjoyed.
ample independence
The reason why
the Persian Gulf has enjoyed peace for a hundred years is, that we
'
Low, History of the Indian Navy,' 1877.

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defeated the enemies of law and liberty, before we made

thoroughly
a treaty.
The outcome of such vigorous but somewhat tardy action was the
final pacification of the Arab coast of the Gulf and the abolition of overt
acts of piracy : our task is not even yet complete ; isolated acts of piracy
occur almost every year, but these sporadic cases are usually swiftly
Retired
pirates
punished, and on the whole our work stands good.
from being raiders of the pearl fleets of Bahrain have become pearl
a gamble which adds a zest to their
divers on the adjoining banks?also
hard life.
Retracing our steps and pursuing our course from Tanb, a few hours'
steaming bring us opposite Lingeh on the Persian coast, now a shadow
of its former self.
Time was when, as a centre for the collection and
of this
the headquarters
it
rivalled even Bahrain;
of
export
pearls,
business is now on the Arab coast, where the local authorities know better
than those in Persia how to foster trade and to encourage local initiative.
Viewed at a distance the town could almost claim to be the prettiest
place on the Gulf, with its houses and minarets backed with palms and
the tinted mountains behind ; but this vision of beauty hardly bears
close inspection.
A few hours bring us to Qais island, where lies anchored a lightship.
We have reason to believe that this island once contained a flourishing
city, though the remains now consist of little more than mere mounds
of stone, blocks of masonry, and ground strewed with fragments of
" is in?
A " great emporium of trade
pottery and Chinese porcelain.
dicated by various of the mediaeval writers, though it is somewhat difficult
to understand how it flourished, since there is no sheltered harbour and
the anchorage is open to one or other of the prevailing winds.
Qais
appears to have been at the height of its glory when visited by Benjamin
He says that, though there was no
of Tudela between 1164-1173 a.d.
of
to
the
absence
springs, so that the inhabitants were
agriculture owing
however a considerable market, to
"is
it
drink
to
rain-water,
obliged
and those of the islands bring their com?
which Indian merchants
modities ; while the traders of Mesopotamia,
Yemen, and Persia import
all sorts of silk and cloths, flax, cotton, hemp, etc., which articles form
objects of exchange ; those from India import great quantities of spices,
and the inhabitants of the islands live by what they gain in their capacity
of brokers of both parties."
Qais seems to have lost its importance?
in the fourteenth century,
for what reason it is not known?somewhere
and its trade passed to Hormuz.
There is a legend, reminiscent of Whittington and his cat, regarding
The following is one of many versions :
the early settlement of the island.
One Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf, embarked for India, with his
sole property, a cat. He fortunately arrived at the island at a time
when the palace was so infested by mice or rats that they invaded the

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king's food, and persons were employed to drive them from the royal
Keis produced his cat, the noxious animals soon disappeared,
banquet.
and magnificent
rewards were bestowed on the adventurer of Siraf,
who returned to that city, and afterwards with his mother and brothers
settled in the island, "which from him, has been denominated
Keis,
*
or, according to the Persian, Keish."
Qais had succeeded Siraf in the proud place of principal emporium
of the Gulf somewhere in the eleventh century.
The site of the latter
place has been identified with that of modern Tahiri, situated some
West of Tahiri are to be seen the
70 miles farther along the coast.
ruins of the old Muhammadan
port of Siraf, extending for a mile or
Farther inland,
more along the shore and up the slope of the foothills.
in the slopes of ravines which come down from the hills, are other remains
apparently pre-Islamic ; in one place the hillside over a space half a mile
square has been worked into tiers of remarkable troughs, the origin and
The earliest reference
purpose of which so far remain unexplained.
we have to Siraf is in the ninth century in the ancient accounts of India
and China by two Muhammadan
travellers who went to those parts
and who tell us that it was then the chief mart of the commerce between
West and East as far even as China.
Istakhri (tenth century) tells us :
" the
most important town of the district ...
is Siraf, which is almost
as large as Shiraz ; its houses are of teak wood or of other wood from
The town is situated on the sea
Zanzibar;
they have several stories.
is
covered
with
fine
and
edifices
is very populous. . . . The
coast,
are
aloes
imports
wood, amber, camphor, precious gems, bamboos,
ivory, ebony, paper, sandal wood, and all kinds of Indian perfumes and
Here Arab dhow and Chinese junk anchored side by side.
drugs."
That the trade must have been considerable is evident from the receipts
of customs of t}ie port, which, according to Ibn ul Balkhi, amounted to
233,000 gold dinars.
Siraf, Qais, and Hormuz, in association with old Basra, epitomize
the commercial history of the Gulf during the Muhammadan era. They
flourished successively
at a time when the Persian Gulf still formed
and trade between West
part of the principal route of communication
and East?before
the " sea-way " round the Cape was found.
We will now cross the Gulf in a due south-westerly
course, to the
Bahrain islands, which lie " between the two seas " in the bay separating
Two acetylene gas buoys maintained by the British
Qatar from Hasa.
Government
guide our ship to the inner anchorage of Manama, the
commercial capital of the principality.
The Shaikh resides mostly at
on
the
smaller
of
the
two
Muhurraq
islands, possibly the Tylos of the
classical writers.
Aged nearly ninety, Shaikh Isa bin Ali al Khalifa,
the doyen of the Arab chiefs of the Gulf, first became inde?
k.c.i.e.,
pendent ruler with the support of the British Government?as
against
Tarikh i Wesdf, of Abdallah Shirazi (thirteenth to fourteenth century).

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He handed over the reins

Turkish pretensions to sovereignty?in
1869.
of office to his eldest son, Shaikh Hamad, under pressure, three years
ago.
The best
At Bahrain we are at the centre of the pearling industry.
of
number
in
Gulf.
the
world
from
the
The
come
operators
pearls
personally engaged in the industry throughout the Gulf is 75,000 at
least, and this number does not take in the reckoning the families of
the operators or the very numerous merchants whose funds are invested
in the business.
The value of the pearls exported in 1904 was at the
lowest computation ^1,500,000
; at the present day the value is probably
at least ^3,000,000
a year, of which Bahrain gets the lion's share.
The richer merchants are mostly Arabs, who are almost as familiar
one and all are experts in pearls,
with Bombay as with Bahrain;
and many now own motor cars, the possession of which, together with
the installation of electric light and fans, may make them less inclined
to hanker after the garish pleasures of Bombay.
is open to the archaeologist in
An interesting field for investigation
Bahrain island, where, near the Arab village of Ali, are to be found
tumuli of ancient but uncertain date, covering several square miles,
For over a generation past there have been tantalizing accounts of these :
Bent in 1889, Captain Durand in 1879, and Major (now
Prideaux in 1906-7, had in turn excavated among them,
Lieut.-Col.)
It was thought possible
but nothing definite was known of their age.
so in
that the tumuli were connected with a migration from Egypt;
asked
was
to
in
had
worked
who
Mr.
E.
Mesopotamia,
1925
Mackay,
He
excavate further at Bahrain for the British School of Archaeology.
opened up some thirty-five chambered tumuli, but the results were
The form of a
scanty, as was the case with the previous excavators.
about 1200-1500 B.C. as the period, and
bronze spear-head indicates
Some of the pottery is of
the pottery would agree with such an age.
but most of it is independent, and shows
forms known in Mesopotamia,
The back of an
what was the style in the East Arabian civilization.
but not like anything known
ivory statuette is of good workmanship,
It seems likely that the island was a cemetery for bones
elsewhere.
transferred from the mainland after the bodies had decomposed.*
One is prompted to surmise that the island may have been the burial
place of the scala of ancient Gerra, the site of which may well have been
near the present-day port of Ujair (Oqair), on the mainland of Hasa,
as suggested by Philby and Cheesman.
Bahrain has for many years been the centre of American missionary
enterprise in the Gulf: other places at which they work are Kuwait,
It will be within the recollection of you all that
Basra and Muscat.
I have
Christian missions in China have recently been denounced.
not seen missions at work in China, but I have seen them at work in
* Flinders Petrie, in epistola.
Theodore

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249

and Persia, for the last twenty years, and I

Arabia,
Mesopotamia,
should not like to speak about the Persian Gulf without bearing testi?
I do not suppose they
mony to the wonderful work they are doing.
have made converts in appreciable
but
numbers,
they have, by their
assisted
the
rectitude
standard
of
labours,
by
displayed by British
high
officials and British merchants, profoundly modified the Arab outlook
in ethical matters.
The Arab is a Muhammadan
first and an Arab
as
he regards
after, like all Islamic races;
likewise,
Europeans,
Christians first and foremost.
He knows, perhaps better than we do,
that our standard of conduct has its basis in the religion of our country ;
he respects our standard of conduct, and without adopting our religious
views he tends, unconsciously,
to recognize our standard of conduct as
He does not despise, but greatly respects, those who
higher than his.
the
devote their lives to spreading, by example
and by teaching,
Christian religion.
There is no greater influence for good in the Gulf
than the Christian missions;
no Europeans are so universally respected
and
as are the missionaries,
such as Zwemer, Van Ess, Harrison
Mylrea, and those who decry foreign missions do less than justice to
themselves and harm to our good name.
To the east of Bahrain lies the Qatar peninsula, of which Palgrave's
He says, " To have an idea of Katar,
description is the best extant.
readers
must
my
figure to themselves miles on miles of low barren hills,
bleak and sun-scorched,
with hardly a single tree to vary their dry
monotonous outline : below these a muddy beach extends for a quarter of
a mile seaward in slimy quicksands, bordered by a rim of sludge and
If we look landwards beyond the hills, we see what by extreme
seaweed.
courtesy may be called pasture land, dreary downs with twenty pebbles
Like Bahrain, Qatar owes its existence to a
for every blade of grass."
limestone fold so gentle that the ground-level in the centre of the peninsula
is only 250 feet above the sea.
"
" of
In these waters
schools
porpoises are frequently met with;
they leap out of the water towards us till the sea is churned up and its
Arrived within
surface flecked everywhere with their shining bodies.
a few hundred yards, they turn off, but a few remain to gambol just ahead
of the ship, keeping only a few inches from her bows and maintaining
At night they may be
their position at 14 knots with the utmost ease.
seen as clearly as by day in the cold phosphorescent
light created by the
if
we
we
are
movement of the ship.
And,
lucky,
may witness one of
those remarkable atmospheric phenomena which occasionally occur in
Such an appearance
the Gulf, more particularly west of the Quoins.
was observed by passengers of the Eden Hall in March 1908, near
" It was dark at the
Hormuz.
time, with a very glassy sea, when it
as
if
some
one
was turning flashlights on the ship.
suddenly appeared
It turned out to be waves of light wheeling round the ship in the air just
The phenomenon
over the sea, and not actually on the surface.
was

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observed for twenty minutes." * A similar spectacle has been observed

in the Malacca Strait.
A brief reference to the temperature of the surface waters of the Persian
Gulf may not be altogether out of place at this point.
Fanciful state?
ments have been made with regard to meteorological
conditions in the
Gulf: it has been alleged, for instance, that the temperature of the water
rarely falls below 330 C. all the year round.
Happily matters are not
so bad as that.
According to available data, at the mouth of the Shatt
al Arab it actually falls as low as 150 in February, and in August rises
to a mean of 320 ; frequently it reaches 34-5?, and has been known to
touch c 360?the
of a warm bath ! Thus the variation
temperature
throughout the year is as much as 170. In the Indian Ocean the corre?
sponding variation is only 6-7?.!
Again, the salinity of the surface
water (to 25 metres depth) of the inner Persian Gulf is high compared
with that of the outer ocean.
A salinity of 40 per 1000 has been observed
in the month of February at Bushire, similar to conditions in the most
But tests have shown that, especially at
northerly part of the Red Sea.
the head of the Gulf, the salinity varies considerably?in
summer it is
There may be other factors, e.g. rainfall,
low, and in winter high.
but the chief cause of the difference between the salinity in summer and
winter of the surface water, in this locality, seems to be the discharge
of the Shatt al Arab;
the decrease in salinity during May and June
synchronizes with the flood of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. J The
subject suggests a useful field of inquiry.
A hundred miles, almost dead north of Bahrain, brings us to Bushire,
the headquarters of our political influence in the Gulf.
We have to
come to anchor 6 miles from the shore, unless our draught and the tides
enable us to reach the inner anchorage 3 miles nearer ; both anchorages
are marked by lighted buoys, and a further mark is a powerful light on
the flag-staff of the Consulate-General.
A desolate place Bushire appears
from the sea, but few spots in the Gulf are more popular with Europeans.
It is virtually an island separated from the mainland by 9 miles of mud
flats : it is the Mesambria of Arrian, " a peninsula, wherein were many
gardens and all kinds of trees that bear fruit," and was visited by
Alexander's fleet.
Here lives the Persian Governor of the Gulf Ports and the Belgian
Director of Customs; and here, in the inner harbour, riding at anchor,
is to be seen the Persepolis,
a German-built
vessel, sole remnant of
Nasir ud Din Shah's navy, now for sale.
The quarantine officials,
this service is run by us on behalf of the Persian
Englishmen?for
* See further
J.B.N.H.S., 1917, xxv.; and Geogr. Journ., 61 (1923), p. 66.
t G. Schott, " Geographie des Persischen Golfes und seiner Randgebiete/, Mitt.
Geogr. Ges. in Hamburg, 1918, 31.
"
%G. Schott, Der Salzgehalt des Persischen Golfes," etc., Ann. der Hydrog.
1908, 36.

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251

on board, sometimes by sailing craft, sometimes in

Government?come
a crazy launch which is all that the greatest naval Power in the world
in these waters, sometimes in
provides for its Chief Representative
Prudent
an almost equally derelict launch of the B.I.S.N. Company.
if
it
be
craft
will
elect
to
ashore
rough.
passengers
by sailing
go
Bushire owes some of its importance to the fact that it is the terminus
of the most frequented and shortest road from the coast of the Gulf to
Shiraz and the interior of Persia.
The derivation of the name Bushire has for long been the subject
of controversy.
The popular derivation from Abu-Shehr is, for etymo?
Dr. Herzfeld, who has made a
logical reasons, unlikely to be correct.
special study of geographical sites and names in Sasanian times, suggests
that the name is some compound of B . . . and Ardashir9 but not
"
Bakht," as suggested
Towns, he says, were assigned
by Curzon.
names connected in some way with the kings of the dynasty, cf. RivArdashir (Reshire) and Ram-Hormuz.
It has been known for some time that the island (or peninsula) of
Bushire offers a worthy field of investigation
for the archaeologist, and
It
had
in
a
been
done
something
perfunctory way to reveal its secrets.
was not until 1913, however, that M. Pezard made excavations which
revealed the historical parallel of the site of Sabzabad with Susa; and
he was able to report that " the excavations
at Bushire demonstrate
that the region was occupied at a very remote epoch by a population,
possibly proto-Elamite
(but in any case very primitive), belonging to the
Eneolithic age."
era, the site of Sabzabad
During the Muhammadan
to
have
been
for
of the peninsula, where
abandoned
the
west
appears
arose the ancient port of Reshire, itself abandoned a century ago, as
shipping increased in size, for the present Bushire.
Weighing anchor and taking an almost due north-westerly course for
the head of the Gulf, after about 30 knots, we pass within sight of Kharag
and the smaller island of Khargu.
The larger is not more than 12 miles
in circumference,
and consists of barren table-topped hills which rise to
250 feet.
Though of small extent, Kharag has figured conspicuously
in the Gulf history.
In 1753, it became the headquarters
of Dutch
commercial activities in the Gulf, after they had abandoned their factory
at Bandar Abbas and had been virtually expelled from Basra ; but they
held it only for a few years until, in fact, they were ousted by that notorious
feeebooter and pirate Mir Muhanna of Bandar Rig, whereupon their
influence in the Gulf came practically to an end.
The English next had
a short but precarious hold upon the island, but relinquished it to its
native owners as being too troublesome,
and it became a convenient
haunt for pirates.
Later, the English twice occupied Kharag as a base
of operations against the Persians during their attacks on Herat?in
1838-42 and in 1856-7 ; and more than once was the proposal put
forward to make it the British Headquarters in the Gulf.
Even to the

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present day the pilots for vessels making

the Shatt al Arab are mostly inhabitants
on the mainland.

PERSIAN

GULF

the passage across the bar of

of Kharag or of Bandar Rig

Kharag, too, seems to have a history stretching back into the dim
past; it holds rock-cut tombs, some sixty in number, regarding which
Professor Herzfeld?who
examined them recently?says
the two larger
ones are catacombs
of the third century with peculiar architectural
features.
Crosses, typically Nestorian in form, cut in the walls, are still
visible, and there are almost obliterated remains of inscriptions in vertical
The conclusion is that the tombs are Christian.
Syriac script.
drawn on by the Ex?
During the war, Kharag was extensively
for road metal.
The quarries have
peditionary Force in Mesopotamia
Oil Company, and during
recently been reopened by the Anglo-Persian
the first year and a half over 40,000 tons of stone were shipped to Abadan.
The only other industry of any importance is pearl fishing, in which about
a hundred men are engaged.
Nearly opposite Kharag lies the small port
of Ganawah, from which the same company have built a road some 60
miles inland, to localities where explorations for oil are in progress.
Twelve hours' steaming from Bushire brings us to Kuwait Bay,
sometimes described as the best harbour in the Gulf, though, as the late
Shaikh Mubarak (who became its ruler in 1896) once remarked to a
" It
globe-trotter :
may be a good port, but there is nothing to put in it."
The jurisdiction of the Shaikh of Kuwait extends nominally for some
200 miles down the western side of the Gulf, when it meets the Hasa
The shaikhs of Kuwait, who are of the Sabah
territory of Ibn Saud.
the blandish?
family, retained a de facto independence,
notwithstanding
ments of their former Turkish neighbours of Hasa and Basra.
The present ruling chief, Shaikh Ahmad al Jabar, c.i.e., enjoys in
a high degree the respect of the Arab world, and the confidence of his
His grandfather,
Shaikh Mubarak, was perhaps the finest
subjects.
" in his
" He
Arab of his generation.
sat," to quote Lovat Fraser,
high
chamber, gazing seaward with his inscrutable eyes, with the face of
Richelieu and something of Richelieu's ambition yet unquenched within
him."
The rule of the Shaikh of Kuwait is personal and absolute.
Autocrats,
whether in the East or the West, and whether in palaces or parliaments,
are as a rule ill informed, for their dependants curry favour by colouring
or suppressing unwelcome truths.
Though an Arab ruler is generally
an autocrat, he is seldom ill informed and, in Kuwait at all events,
public opinion has the fullest freedom of expression in the coffee-shop
where the Shaikh holds daily court; to him are brought for decision all
cases which cannot be amicably settled by agreement;
before him any
man or woman may state his or her argument without the cost of em?
ploying a lawyer, for there are none.
We steam out of Kuwait Bay past the beacon at Ras al Ardh and

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past Failaka island, feeling our way gingerly through shoal waters
towards the Shatt al Arab. Steaming slowly and guided, as we approach
the bar, by the lightship, we anchor near the pilot vessel and wait, along
with other vessels, till a pilot comes off. The lightship anchored here is
a modern invention and a source of no small pride to those of Basra
who are responsible for it; but a thousand years ago lights for the
guidance of the mariner existed not only here but at other places along
this muddy and shoaly coast, when even in those days the sea traffic
" there
from Basra was very great.
Masudi in the tenth century tells us,
are marks of wood erected for the sailors ... on the side of Ubolla and
Abadan, which look like seats in the middle of the water and upon which
fires are burnt by night, to caution the vessels which come from Oman,
Siraf, and other ports." Idrisi (twelfth century) tells us that such another
construction
was " situated at the place where the Dijla (Tigris) dis?
We turn, however, to Nasir i
charges its waters into the sea of Fars."
Khusraw (eleventh century) for the most realistic description of these
He says, " they are erected
erections, which were known as khashab.
for a double purpose : firstly, for lighting during the night by means of
lights enclosed in glass to protect them from the wind; and secondly, to
show the navigator his position.
By day a smoke fire was kindled which
The khashab is formed
indicated the position of the landmark from afar.
of four great posts of saj (teak) wood placed in a square, and having the
the base is broad and the top narrow, and the height
form of a catapult;
On the top are placed stones and tiles
above sea-level is forty guez*
resting on pieces of wood in such a way as to form a platform on which
is a square cabin for a watchman."
I have already attempted to analyze, in the Journal of this Society,f
the origin of the mudshoals which form the bar of the Shatt al Arab,
and position of the
and the great changes both in the configuration
coast-line since the times when the Euphrates, Tigris, and Karun flowed
Those who wish to have a
into the Persian Gulf by separate mouths.
of
this
intricate
closer knowledge of the conditions
approach to Iraq and
"
I
would
refer
to the observations
the great Euphrates-Tigris
corridor,"
I there make.
A pilot from Kharag or Bandar Rig comes aboard our steamer,
takes charge with the easy and confident demeanour of pilots all the
world over, and we steam across the bar, our course well marked out by
Steamers of more than 23-feet draught
lighted and unlighted buoys.
are unable to cross the bar in either direction without recourse to
lighterage, and must remain so until the proposed dredging of a channel,
some 300 feet in bottom width, has been accomplished.
Two hours
later, or thereabout, we pass Fao, the cable station on the right bank of
the Shatt where, in November
1914, our troops first landed, capturing
*

Twenty-five open hands, placed side by side;

t Geogr. Journ., 65, March 1925.

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and dismantling the fort before pushing on to Basra, soaked in rain and
half drowned in mud.
The right bank of the Shatt al Arab is a belt of palm trees, stretching
almost without a break from Fao to Qurna;
the left, or Persian bank,
which is lower by comparison, is less cultivated.
Two hours' steaming
the
stretches
of
the
Shatt
us
to
the
up
majestic
brings
great tank farm and
of
the
Oil
at
Bawarda
jetties
and, a few minutes
Anglo-Persian
Company
Then in less than an hour we reach the spot where
more, to Abadan.
the Karun river joins the Shatt on its left bank, with Mohammerah just
round the bend.
Still a few miles farther up stand two boundary pillars
on the left bank, which mark the limit of Persian territory;
thereafter
we are in Iraq. Twelve miles more bring us to Basra, the home of Sindbad
the Sailor, of " Bassorah dates " and of " Persian barley," and the last
Here
resting-place of thousands of gallant soldiers, British and Indian.
our periplus comes to an end.
A few words in conclusion.
In commencing this lecture I said the
people of the Persian Gulf were not unworthy of admiration.
May I
trespass on your patience to say something on the subject to those who,
like Sir Alfred C. Lyall, " strive to appreciate the native point of view,
and to judge the people and their actions by their own standards, rather
than by those of a white man living in their midst," or who, like Sir
"
brown humanity " and, having learnt something of
Hugh Clifford, love
the language and religion of an Eastern race, have accepted its social
conventions, understanding
something of its storied past ?
and
an aspiration and, even as a social in?
is
an
instinct
Religion
stitution of high utility, is not to be easily or safely uprooted, and will
But Islam in these waters is
long be a mighty force among mankind.
the
older faiths : many of its
like
in
other
rooted,
religions elsewhere,
shrines on the Persian side were places of pilgrimage before the teaching
the names of the epic
of Muhammad had replaced that of Zoroaster;
heroes of pre-Islamic days?of
Rustam, Zuhrab, and Zal; of Solomon,
still on the lips of men, who have found for them
Bahram, and Qubad?are
a local habitation, with but little regard to the exigencies of archaeology
and history.
Pictures of these national heroes, and of the saints of the
Shiah hagiology, are no less popular to-day than they were a thousand
years ago, and the European who would understand Persian or Arab
of the stories which may be seen
must know something
pyschology
or coloured cloth made on the
on
almost
of
brass
stamped
every piece
spot.
The daily life of Persian and Arab alike has in it something of joy
which the acerbities of Islam has not quenched :
and light-heartedness
the Persian prefers the hedonism of Hafiz to the philosophy of Sadi, and
the unbending bigotry of the Shiah priesthood is agreeably tempered
in the masses by the strain of mysticism which runs through their litera?
ture and, amongst the Arab tribesmen, by the sense of freedom which

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comes naturally to them from their life in open spaces or amongst the
eternal hills.
The dark shadow of a form of bondage akin to slavery falls over many
heat and cold, hunger and thirst, vermin, pain, sickness,
pearl divers;
and death are to them, as they were to us all in Europe not so very long
ago, and to very many during the Great War, a necessary part of life,
not things to fear or avoid contact with, but things to face stoically and
even light-heartedly,
as the common lot of man.
Those who have lived
for many years in primitive lands among ancient peoples will understand
the fascination which the Gulf has exercised over me; and those who
have lived in Islamic countries will understand more easily than others
why it is in the East that great religious were born, and why they enjoy,
inevitable poverty and much misrule, a cultured stability
notwithstanding
which Europe has yet to attain.
Our final supremacy in these waters ushered in an era of freedom of
trade, of commerce, and good feeling amongst peoples, notably between
Arab ports and India, between whom no friendly intercourse previously
existed.
Amongst these peoples it is our privilege to exercise influence
without dominion, to obtain trade without acquiring territory; successive
generations of British officials and merchants have set their mark upon
the Gulf without impairing the vigour of the local governments, whose
precarious existence we have often assisted to maintain and have never
destroyed.
Before the paper the PRESIDENT(Dr. D. G. Hogarth) said : You probably
all know Sir Arnold Wilson by name. He is going to speak to you about a
very interesting and, in many ways, little-known region in which he has spent,
I believe, fifteen years?fifteen years in what is, one way or another, the hottest
place on the globe. He is going not to speak of particular research in that
region, but to give you a general conspectus of the Persian Gulf, which he has
perhaps more reason to know well than almost any other living man. He will
describe to you its general features. Though Sir Arnold has been fifteen years
in that part of the world, not much of that time has been spent upon the actual
waters of the Gulf. I believe he held once a consular post in Mohammerah,
and you may remember that he was British representative on the Turco-Persian
Boundary Commission before the war?a Commission which I believe, as
British representative, he came to run entirely, as indeed he has run a good
many things since. In fact, he ran it so successfully in the matter of supplies
that we can only suppose that by becoming a Director of the Anglo-Persian
Oil Company, which he is at this moment, he missed the even more lucrative
vocation of becoming a director of Messrs. Lyons!
After that he did very
great service in the war, and he was, at a time after the war, when Sir Percy
Cox became Ambassador at Tehran, our chief Civil Representative in Iraq.
In that capacity he had to do many and very difficult things, because he was
there at the time of the post-war rising of certain tribes in that country. His
name became a household word with every one who had to do with the Eastern
theatre of the war, and still more with those who had to do with the difficult
problems of that theatre in the first year or two of the peace. I think even those
of us who have had some reason to be concerned with the Persian Gulf and

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